1. Integrating (Technology-Infused) Project-Based Inquiry Initiatives into a Middle-Grades Science Curriculum: Essentials and Challenges OR
From (Technology-Infused) Project-Based Units to (T-I) Project-Based Curriculum: Challenges and Opportunities
11/12/2018

2. Project-Based Inquiry Learning
Investigation in the context of a personally-engaging real-world challenge
Early activities generate issues for investigation
Students design investigations and report results, multiple resources used
Results are applied to addressing the challenge
Public exhibits of solutions, methodologies, what they have learned
Investigation and application are often repeated until a good solution is achieved
Assessments are built in
Focus on processes involved in getting to solutions, not simply on solutions themselves
11/12/2018

3. Project challenges Explain an interesting phenomenon Solve a problem
El Nino, finches dying off
Solve a problem
Helping students avoid catching each others’ colds
Debate an important policy issue
Global warming
Achieve a design challenge
Manage erosion in the schoolyard, design a vehicle
Build a scientific model
Ecology of a river
Answer a “big question”
How old is the universe?
11/12/2018

4. Learning Objectives Deep learning of content
Learning of science, project, collaboration, and communication skills and practices
Learning for transfer -- can use what’s learned outside the classroom to explain, predict, solve problems, analyze the ideas of others, ...
11/12/2018

5. Infusing Project-Based Learning with Technology
Principle: Use hardware and software to make the goals of project-based learning more achievable
To overcome learning difficulties
To enhance activity structures and overcome classroom management, time, and other pragmatic difficulties
To enhance access to phenomena
11/12/2018

6. Technology examples WorldWatcher for visualizing climate patterns
BeGuile for access to population data
Project Portfolio for keeping project records and putting together reports
Model-It for system modeling
SMILE scaffolds experiment design, writing up project experiences, and articulation of lessons learned
11/12/2018

7. Accomplishments Lots of standards-based units
Lots of software -- in support of record-keeping, collaboration with each other and with scientists, model-building and simulation, designing experiments, presentation, articulation of what’s been learned, investigation in particular domains
Principles of practice -- for promoting student engagement, for facilitation, for promoting student reflection, for promoting teacher learning, for infusing software, for promoting reading with understanding, for maintaining individual accountability, ...
11/12/2018

8. Results Students engage better and deeper; fewer discipline problems
Learning of content is as good or better than comparisons (and more evenly distributed)
Learning of science, project, collaboration, and communication skills and practices is really exciting
11/12/2018

9. From disparate units to 3 years of curriculum: Opportunities
Easier to create and maintain a culture of knowledge building, inquiry, collaboration, and rigor
Easier to integrate the sciences
Easier to draw connections between methodologies used by different scientific disciplines
Can sequence developmentally
11/12/2018

10. From disparate units to 3 years of curriculum: Challenges
Providing coverage -- depth vs. breadth
Addressing local needs while addressing national standards
Energy
Diversity of software
Connecting the sciences
Building skills across scientific disciplines
Sequencing
Task structures that work for different types of challenges and investigative methodologies
Helping teachers assess
11/12/2018

11. Format
Four speakers will each address a set of these issues minutes each
Discussant -- Michael Young, U. Conn. -- will challenge us to think more deeply and moderate a panel discussion minutes
Questions from the audience
11/12/2018

12. Four talks
Joe Krajcik, Michigan -- tensions inherent in systemic use of projects in a reform curriculum -- social and systemic
Paul Camp, GA Tech -- building skills across disciplines and their varying methodologies -- cognitive
Danny Edelson, Northwestern -- getting to task structures that will work across units -- socio-cognitive and pragmatic
Bob Sherwood, Vanderbilt -- navigating the commercial markets -- pragmatics
11/12/2018